#OnBoardTheAvatar

Saturday 21st September at 11am we gathered around to wait for the bus. "We're just waiting on one more person. Anyone know Stephanie?"
"Well, it can't be our Stephanie!" Chelsea and I discussed "she's on a different boat!"
"She's been moved boats, maybe nobody told her," said the captain again.
As fate would have it, our Stephanie was joining us on the avatar! This was going to be a fun weekend!

We boarded the boat and found our beds, I shared with Chelsea and a girl from Italy called Sara. The room was right at the end of the boat and contained the food storage cupboard - bad planning on their part! That pantry is getting raided!

On top deck there are two sides, the "party" side and the "chill" side. Apparently the only reason it's so chilled is that none of us sat there! The deck was like a trampoline and allowed us to sun bathe and chat. The whole group was so lovely and everyone got on well.

Once safety briefings and lunch were over we kitted up in our sting suits and went out for our first snorkel. The water was so beautiful, pure blue and clear as day. I didn't see many fish but the corals alone were beautiful to look at. Some small fish weaved between the talons of the reef including a pretty parrot fish. It was multicoloured and so bright and shiny, it was the prettiest fish I had seen so far.

Snorkelling was so much fun but it did take some getting used to with the snorkel and mask. Sometimes you got big gulps of salt water in your mouth and had to stop to empty out your mask. Lazy people were given a noodle so that minimum effort was required to swim through the Reef. Mine was blue! I was glad that I had it because I was nervous to step on the coral- they bite, pinch and stab you in the feet so I was keen to have my feet as near to the water's surface as possible!

We returned to our boat and made a start on the goon. We attempted to play ring of fire but apparently it's not a 29 player game so we switched to charades. During dinner, it started to rain so we sat in the boat and had a few drinks and played a few games. Near the end of the night we played a box game. The idea is that you tear a cereal box around the edge and the aim of the game is to pick it up with your mouth but you can't touch the floor with anything other than your feet.

After each round the box gets smaller and becomes harder to pick up. After practically breaking my legs I finally got out coming in 3rd place. The winner was Des who was the boat cook and in second place was the younger guide.

At what felt like midnight but was actually about 10:30pm we headed to our soggy bed where all 3 of us snuggled together awkwardly and were rocked to sleep by the calming sway of the boat.